lee 230 gr in 30-30

[Silicon Wolverine]

tinkering with the idea of using the lee 230 gr blackout bullet in my marlin 30-30 for silhouette shooting. 150 gr bullets often dont tipthe 200 yard ram targets and im thinking the 230 would give me some better energy at that distance. cant find any data on heavy bullets in 30-30. obviously would be single loaded. any ideas?

also plan on tinkering with 10-11 gr unique loads for plinking in 30-30 and 308 with this bullet

SW

[popper]

1:10 twist might give you problems at low fps & long boolit. 180 wold probably be better.

[Tackleberry41]

Most 30-30 are not even 1-10 twist but 1-12. I do not have the lee 230gr mold but an NOE. Wont even try it in my 30-30. 200gr the groups open up to 12 in or more at 50yds. Slower you go like the 10gr unique load worse it will get. You will get best results w a 180gr or less.

I do have a 30-30 I can shoot 230gr in, but it has a 1-8 twist in it.

[Silicon Wolverine]

using don millers twist rule it should only take 1050 FPS to stabilize a 230 gr bullet in 1-10 rifling. thats what my marlin 336 has.

SW

[runfiverun]

if you have the mold try 8grs of the unique as a starting point.
the base on the lee 230 is not happy when the boolit is pushed very hard, but you need enough velocity to stabilize the thing.
finding the balance point of speed and stability versus the boolits length and design issues will be what your looking for.

[Silicon Wolverine]

ive seen the mold modified in a mill to make the boat tail a flat base. i was thinking of doing the same thing to mine.

SW

[lotech]

I've found the gospel on twist rate, bullet length/weight & velocity is usually right, but the occasional exception makes the oddball combination worth trying.

[Tackleberry41]

No you wont find data for 30-30 that heavy. I have fired 225gr BTHP out of my 1-8 twist, using 11gr of S1000, it was only giving about 950fps the day I was testing, then next time they were up to just under 1100, warmer day lower altitude. The 230gr NOE I want to say its 8.1gr of S1000, will have to go look at my book to say for sure. I am running subsonic in mine.

The online calculators work pretty good, but it may say stable at the muzzle, but not down range. Try it see if it works, maybe if I drove the 200s harder they might fly better, but again I am looking for subsonic. And why I put a 1-8 twist in the gun.

[runfiverun]

I know some guy's have issues with that boolit in an 8 twist 300 bo.
I went to a 7 twist to avoid having problems with anything.

[Boolseye]

I think I'd be concerned with the pointy profile in a tubular mag, such as in your Marlin. Maybe a non-issue, I don't know. That boolit shoots well in my 1/8 blackout carbine.

[pill bug]

I got to admit, I've put some pretty pointy lead bullets thru the magazine of my flat band 94 Winchester. Actually many hundreds of of them. Hope I was not tempting fate to much!

[Boolseye]

Lol sounds like you got away with it so far!

[olafhardt]

I could not get streamlined j-words to feed through the feeders on a Win 94 or a Stevens 325. My Handirifle gobbled them up.

[stubbicatt]

If you are interested in an alternative, I have found good results with the RCBS 180 grain bullet in my 30-30.

[Hamish]

SW,

Take a look at the Lee 309-200-R. It's not quite as heavy, but the length to weight ratio is better, the gas check design will preclude a lot of the possible problems others have encountered with the goofy boat tail plain base design, not to mention the bearing surface ratio differential between the two designs. Anyone can say what they will, this basic Lee design has shot well for me in 7mm, .30 cal, and 8mm with very little fuss no matter what it's tried in.

I believe the numbers guys will confirm that 200 grains at even minimal velocities anywhere above about 1800 fps should be quite sufficient for Rams.

http://leeprecision.com/mold-dc-c309-200-r.html

I tried the 230 in several platforms and was never even mildly happy with it in any of them.

[Silicon Wolverine]

well that didnt work in the least. 30-30 was a total dud. keyholes all over the place no matter what powder i tried. upped into my 30-06. with 2400 it wasnt going fast enough to stabilize. tried it with RL19 and 4000MR. if i drove it fast enough to stabilize it leaded the barrel like crazy. like edison said, "we learned another way not to do it."

still not a bad way to spend a sunday.

SW

[CPL Lou]

Try this powder: http://castboolits.gunloads.com/showthread.php?115657-LeveRevoltuion-Powder

The RCBS 180FN actually weighs 197 grains and works quite well with leverevolution powder.

CPL Lou